Experienced cruisers with first time travellers - frustration at start but ok afterwards

As experienced cruisers, we built up the RC cruise to the in-laws as an experience not to be missed. After spending 3.5 hours in line to get on the ship, they were exhausted and in no mood to be impressed. It was embarrassing for me considering how much I bragged on RC and how efficient it is. Luckily, their state room and on-board experience was their first vacation in literally 20 years so they did not have anything to compare the experience to. Since we travel abroad often, all of the missing "little things" were very noticeable to us and it was not an impressive cruise. Hopefully, we will convince them to go on another cruise with us in the future, but it wont be on the Navigator of the Seas.

A few items in no particular order :

Safe not working for 3 days

No hot water in shower for 3 days

Charged for minibar items that were not used

Lost luggage between boarding and room

Windjammer buffet - ok but nothing special

Sapphire dining - excellent

Room staff unseen - left notes for repairs and had to call maintenance ourselves and had to stand in room for hours waiting for them to show up. Reminded me of waiting for the cable guy.

Constantly a line of at least 8 people at the customer service desk. Literally the entire cruise we never walked by the customer service desk without a line being there. Personally stood in line at least 4 times adding up to hours of wasted time.

As RC gold members, we are not supposed to be required to attend the ridiculous safety drill, but had to for this one. * edit * (it has been pointed out to me that this drill is mandatory for all passengers. All I can say is that on our last two cruises we were not required to attend due to previous cruise experience)

Overall, the cruise was not terrible, but I am sure that isn't the review rating that RC was aiming for when they charged me for the cruise. We have been on many cruise lines and still seem to prefer RC, even though the cost is a little more. Sadly though, one more cruise like this one and we will be looking for a different line.

Category Ratings

Click table then swipe to view all columns.

Embarkation and Disembarkation

2.0 hour wait in line, in the rain to get to the door.
1.0 hour wait in line to get to the next line.
0.5 hour wait in the final line to get to someone who looked at my passport and gave me a room key (2 minutes)
total time from taxi to ship = 3.5hours and 2 minutes.

Ship Quality

We have been on this ship before (we usually cruise on RC) and can tell that it is now an older vessel.

Destinations and Excursions

Onboard Activities

limited number of 'free' activities.
quite a few 'not free' activities.

Children's Programs

N/A

Entertainment

Ice dancing was very good.

Service and Staff

food staff MOST excellent!
room staff less than excellent.
safe did not work for 3 days
spent 2 hours waiting in room for someone to come fix it after calling maintenance ourselves.
safe stopped working again on last day.
shower had nothing but cold water for first three days. After leaving notes on bed and door, finally saw room attendant on 3rd day and requested it repaired. He called maintenance. Had hot water later that night.

Food and Dining

please never get rid of main dining seating. Anytime dining is not the same experience. So glad we called RC and got set dining times at the same table each night.

Tip

"As RC gold members, we are not supposed to be required to attend the ridiculous safety drill, but had to for this one.". If your talking about the Muster drill, I don't know who gave you that information but it was WRONG! As directed by the U.S. Coast Guard, ALL passengers of ALL cruise ships MUST attend the Muster Drill!! Member status of the passenger on any cruise line has NO bearing on this law!!

yes I had never heard of that either ... but still sorry your trip didn't go as planned ... I know what its like to plan something for others and really want it to turn out well ... maybe next time .. I would try celebrity if you haven't already ... plenty of wow factor:)

Depending on the Mini-Bar. Some are set up to charge you for the item even if you just move it. I know, found that out in Vegas.... Muster station drill... A MUST by law all the time every time. I know what you mean about trying to impress those who have not cruised before. Thing for us worked out very well, however the only fly on the ointment was when my sister booked the cruise she did not inform the line that she will be just coming off of knee surgery, NCL did its best but if they had known the situation, more could have been done.

We are cruising again next year and will be trying to get newbies on board. We will let everyone know how that goes.

"As RC gold members, we are not supposed to be required to attend the ridiculous safety drill, but had to for this one."

"RIDICULOUS" safety drills, Hey?

"Each member of the crew had a boat assigned to him in printed lists which were posted up in convenient places for the men to see; but it appeared that in some cases the men had not looked at these lists and, did not know their respective boats."

"There had been no proper boat drill nor a boat muster. There seem to be no statutory requirements as to boat drills or musters, although there is a provision that when a boat drill does take place the master of the vessel is, under penalty, to record the fact in his log. It is desirable that the Board of Trade should make rules requiring boat drills and boat musters to be held of such a kind and at such times as may be suitable to the ship and to the voyage on which she is engaged. Boat drill, regulated according to the opportunities of the service, should always be held."

"The men who are to man the boats should have more frequent drills than hitherto. That in all ships a boat drill, a fire-drill and a watertight door drill should be held as soon as possible after leaving the original port of departure and at convenient intervals of not less than once a week during he voyage."

"In cases where the deck hands are not sufficient to man the boats enough other members of the crew should be men trained in the boat work to make up the deficiency. These men should be required to pass a test in boat work."

From: Parts of the report before the "Right Honourable Lord Mersy, Wreck Commissioner---British Board of Trade. Into the loss of the steamship "Titanic" of Liverpool, and the loss of 1490 lives in the North Atlantic Ocean, in lat. 41 degrees 46 minutes N, Long, 50 degrees 14 minutes W on the 15th April last.

ok, last posting for me on this but figured I would at least answer once since folks took the time to write. My original review is meant to let others know what my experiences were on this particular cruise in case they were interested. It is not intended to be an essay on cruising in general :)

CrusinTim : although the internet makes it difficult to ascertain the feelings behind some sentences, words in caps almost always come across as aggressive. As for the mandatory drill, it is possible that you are right, however, we have not been required to attend them on the last two cruises that we were on. One of them was an RC cruise and one of them was a Norwegian cruise. In both cases, we were excused from the drill due to previous cruise experience. Not sure what else to say about all of that, but that's what happened.

StratfordGirl : thanks! We have always enjoyed cruising and in particular, cruising on RC. This particular trip was a disappointment however, and we have now booked our next cruise in June on Celebrity. Hopefully we have a better experience.

JohnGold : I agree. RC has typically been very good for us. This cruise let us down however. I hope that your next one is fantastic!

Kennicot : I enjoyed the post tremendously, but I still stand by my choice of words :)

alright, off to finish seeing the world and likely not returning to this post. For those who can make good use of my review, you are welcome. For those who cannot, sorry, but that's all of the time I have for a cruise review. Enjoy your cruises and enjoy your lives. I am off to do just that :)

Well it was nice of Apples4rent to respond here and explain things more clearly. It seems most aren't near as congenial and could care less with the impressions or misimpressions they leave behind.

My only concern with his review was his use of the term "ridiculous" when describing life boat drills. I'm still not clear if he meant that "ridiculous" was applicable to requiring seasoned voyagers to have to attend musters or if he believes emergency drills in general are "ridiculous". Either way, I have a problem with that, but particularly if it's the latter.

I have spent a professional lifetime in the airplane game. A goodly percentage dealing with safety concerns. I'm in strong agreement with the "British Board of Trade's" pertinent assessments on the Titanic disaster (See my first post). I do not believe that crew or passengers should ever be excused from a drill. For instance, we are all familiar with the safety spiel airline passengers must endure just before departure. But passengers don't listen because they "have heard it all before". Yes they have, they have heard, ad nauseam, the instructions pertinent to a loss of cabin pressurization. In all cases, airlines tell you that you must pull down on the oxygen mask in order to activate the flow of oxygen, it doesn't happen automatically. This is why they tell you to put on your own mask before assisting others. Unfortunately, those that have heard it all before, time after time, in their panic fail to pull the mask down and instead stretch their necks out in attempts to breath nothing.

Unless crew and passengers on ships as well as large air transports continue to pay attention and practice safety, the old cliche will kick in for sure when the unfortunate occurs: "When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles scream and shout."

Here is the reason I am so concerned the over callous attitudes of many cruisers toward safety drills:

"I am not at all satisfied with the emergency procedures, facilities for such and the drills etc, or the lack thereof, needed to cope with a disaster at sea involving vessels of the size we use today. The complexities of such give me the chills when I contemplate the potential of a catastrophic accident at sea involving fire, collision or other seagoing eventualities, particularly if the vessel experiences a rapid list to one side or the other. It doesn't appear to me that Carnival Corp learned much from their Costa Concordia sinking."

*Cruiseline.com is not a booking agent or travel agency, and does not charge any service fees to users of our site. Our partners (travel agencies and cruise lines) provide prices, which we list for our users' convenience. Cruiseline.com does not guarantee any specific rates or prices. While prices are updated daily, please check with the booking site for the exact amount. Cruiseline.com is not responsible for content on external web sites.